Blade magazine



June 1954 M. J. SHNITZLER ET AL 2,680,291

BLADE MAGAZINE Filed April 2, 1949 Patented June 8, 1954 BLADE MAGAZINE Meyer J. Shnitzler, Brookline, Michael D. Benedict, J r., Lynn,

The Gillette Company,

ware

Ralph Abrams, Roxbury, and James C. Flynn, Belmont, Mass.,

assignors to a corporation of Dela- Application April 2, 1949, Serial No. 85,206

4 Claims. 1

This invention comprises a new and improved magazine for safety razor blades, more especially that type of magazine in which a supply of blades is maintained in stacked formation arranged to be ejected one after another as required by the user.

The principal object of the invention is to provide a magazine which may be constructed at little or moderate cost and which at the same time will contain an ample supply of blades, safeguarded against edge contact but so arranged that a single blade at a time may be separated from the stack and ejected without danger of jamming or of cutting the users fingers.

The invention is herein shown as embodied in a magazine of the injector or repeater type wherein the separate blades are ejected by reciprocation of a feed slide that may be readily operated by the user and, when so operated, automatically and accurately effects the desired separating and ejecting operations.

In one aspect, the magazine of our invention comprises a channel-shaped casing having grooved side walls and a sheet metal cover fitting slidably in the grooves of the side walls and hav-- ing angular portions at both ends positively locking the cover against movement in either direction longitudinally with respect to the casing. A magazine of this character has the outstanding advantage that it may be constructed essentially of two parts, a casing and a cover, and that these parts may be interlocked in assembled relation without requiring other fastening means.

Going more into detail, the magazine of our invention in its preferred form comprises a channel-shaped casing, which may be formed advantageously by molding plastic material, and a sheet metal cover which as herein shown is shaped to fit slidably into the grooves of the casing and is provided with angular portions that interlock with the casing and hold the casing and cover positively in assembled relation. Preferably, the interlocking portion at one end of the cover is fully shaped before the parts are assembled, while the locking portion at the other end of the cover is arranged to be bent into its interlocking position after the magazine has been filled with blades and the cover assembled in position upon the casing.

These and other features of the invention will be best understood and appreciated from the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, selected for purposes of illustration and shown in the accompanying drawings, in which:

7 [2, a front end wall l3 and a rear end wall I4.

The casing may be advantageously molded from any suitable plastic material such'as cellulose acetate, Vinylite, Bakelite, or the like. The side walls are parallel and define a channel of uniform width from end to end of the casing. They are provided internally with opposed longitudinal grooves adjacent to their rounded upper edges,

and these grooves are open at opposite ends of the casing. In the bottom 10 is provided an inwardly-inclined guideway or ramp l5 which terminates in a transverse slot l0 opening into the bottom of the casing. The guideway I5 is located in the rear portion of the bottom [0, and the slot l6 opens into a rectangular well ll formed in the inner face of the bottom for the accommodation of a bowed spring I0 which is best shown in Fig. 3. It will be understood that after the magazine has been filled and closed, the bowed spring may be advanced along the guideway I5, passed through the slot l6 and located in the well I! beneath a stack of blades which has already been placed in the magazine.

The side wall ll of the casing is cut away or shaped at its forward end to form a vertical external shoulder l9, which defines a recess 20 in the wall. The shoulder l9 extends into the bottom of the casing, providing an elongated notch therein.

Within the casing is provided a pair of vertical posts 2| and 22, and these posts present divergent vertical walls which engage correspondingly beveled corners of the blades and thus hold the blades in spaced relation from the inner face of the wall l2. In this way the sharp edges of the blades are guarded against contact with any part of the magazine. The rear end wall IA of the casing is provided with exterior notches 23 in its upper corners, and these notches are defined in part by inwardly and upwardly inclined edge surfaces.

The casing member has now been fully described, and it will be apparent that it can be formed advantageously by injection molding and that it is adapted for straight draft from the molds with the exception of the longitudinal grooves in its side walls. The formation of these grooves, however, requires only the presence ofcontractible core members. in the mold, these being well known in the molding art.

The cover member may be formed advantageously from a single flat blank of sheet steel: or other metal. As suggested by the fragmentary view of Fig. 2, it comprises an elongated rectangular body portion 24 provided-witha longitudinal median slot 25 for the. feed slide and having at its rear end a pairof laterally extending tongues 25 formed by opposedlitransversezslots. The body 24 and the tongues 26 are of such width as to fit slidably but snugly-into the opposed grooves of the side walls of the casing. At its forward end the cover is provided with an angular wall portion 21 extending downwardly at right angles to the body .24 and of such dimensions as to completely fill'the recess-2w formed in the forward end of the wall ll. At its lower end the angular portion 21 is-provided withan inturned flange 28 which is shaped to fill the elongated. notchin the bottom It beneath the recess 23. The angularportion 21 merges into a forwardly or outwardly extending key or pilot 29 which in using thernagazine with a safety razor serves to establish and maintain the magazine and razor in operative relation for blade transfer. It will be apparent that the cover member above described'may be formed readily from the flatblank partially shown in Fig. 2 by bending the iportions2'l and28 into the desired position with. respect to the bodyr24 and that the angular wallportion 21 when fitted into its recess 20 will firmly support the forwardly extending pilot 29.

Thefeed slide, comprising an outer member 30 and an inner members! connected to the slide by a tongue 32, is mounted on the bodyZfi of the cover for reciprocating movement longitudinally of the magazine. Oneform of blade 33 adapted to be supplied bythe magazine above described is shown in Fig. 3. It will be noted that the two corners of the sharpened edge of the blade are beveled .at an angle corresponding to that of the inclined faces of the posts 2| and 22 of the magazine casing. It willbe noted. also that the front end Wall l3 of the casing terminates slightly below the opposed grooves in the sidewalls of the casing-and thus define anexit slit at that end of the magazine.

In practice a stack of bladesisifor example ten or twenty blades, is placed within the casing and properly located in the forward end thereof by the inclined faces of the psts2i and 22 with their rear unsharpened edges approximately in contact with the inner face of the wall H. The cover may now be slipped rearwardly into the opposedgrooves of the side walls and moved rearwardly until the angular sideportion 2? of the cover is fully seated in the recess 29 and in contact with theshoulder [Sshown in Fig. 1. When the cover is thus assembled, the cars 28- are brought into registration with the notches 23 in the rear wall. The cover may now'be positively interlocked with the casing by bending down the ears 26 into the notches ZSas shown in Fig. 1. The cover is thus positively interlocked at both ends with the casing being heldagainst rearward movement bytheshoulder-lfi and against forwardmovementbythe bent ears 26. 'At this stage, the feed slide free --to reciprocate idly suggested in Fig. 1. :movement will transfer the blade directly to the "stack. Subsequently, when the feed slide is .moved forwardly, it engages the uppermost blade and advances it out through the blade exit slit as In practice, this ejecting blade seat of the safety razor which, though not herein shown, will at that time be properly positioned by the finger 29 for the blade-transferring operation.

As an optional feature, the wall H is shown as provided in its upper edge with a deep notch 3A extending substantially below the body 24 of the cover and thus serving as a sight window.

Through this window the rear unsharpened'edges of the blades 33 in the magazine are visible and consequently the user may at any time ascertain the condition of his supply of blades.

Having thus disclosed our invention and described in detail one illustrative embodiment thereof, we claim as new anddesire tosecure'by Letters Patent:

1. A blade magazine comprising an elongated channel-shaped plastic casing with parallel side walls having opposed grooves and endwalls, one of the end Walls being recessed at an upper corner, one side wall having an open cut-away porticn at its end opposit to the recessed end wall, and a sheet metal cover fitting at its edges in said grooves and having at one end an ear bent into the recess of said end wall and at the other end an angular section bent into the open .cutaway portion in the side wall of the casing, thus positively holding the cover against longitudinal displacement in either direction on the casing.

A blade magazine including in its structure a channel-shaped plastic casing with abottom, end walls and grooved parallel side walls, one end wall being recessed and the other defining in part the blade-exit opening of the magazine, and one side wall and the bottom having abut-away portion at the end of the magazine opposite to the recessed end wall, and a sheet metal cover fitting in the grooves of said sidewalls andhaving at one end an ear bent into the recessof the end wall and at the other an angular section fitting the cut-away portion at the other end of the casing in the side walland bottom thereof and an elongated finger projecting outwardly therefrom beyond the end of the casing.

3. A blade magazine comprising a channelshaped casing having grooved side walls one of which presents) a vertically extending shoulder, an end wall recessed in its uppercorners, and a fiat sheet metal cover fitted into said grooves and having transversely slitted tongues at one end that are bent into the recesses of the end wall and a down-turned portion near its other end disposed in contact with said verticallyextending shouider.

4. A blade magazine comprising a rectangular casing having internal shoulders defining in part .a blade-receiving chamber and .a bottom, the bottom having an inwardly and upwardly inclined guideway therein terminating at its inner end in a transverse-slot opening into the said References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 176, 53 Allred June 7, 1892 1,092,067 Marx Mar. 31, 1914 1,289,748 Hart Dec. 31, 1918 Number 6 Name Date Petit 'May 18, 1920 Todd Feb, 10, 1931 Gaisman Aug. 4, 1931 Lashar May 30, 1933 Heppenstall Jan. 29, 1935 Rodrigues Feb. 23, 1938 Kuhnl lay 14, 1940 Kuhnl Sept, 17, 1940 Testi Apr. 8, 1947 Steinbach Feb. 17, 1948 Daikowitz Apr. 6, 1948 

